SPAIN barcelona (le mercé!:uno)
an awesome perk about living in spain is that it is always celebrating some sort of holiday. ”le mercé” at the end of september marks the end of summer/beginning of fall and is held in honor of barcelona’s saint. there are over 500 events held throughout the weekend, and i got to catch a few of them. sooo…here are some highlights:
the first was the “correfoc,” which translates into “fire run” in catalan. people in “devil” costumes (the gaudi lizard was even one of them!), parade down the street breathing out fireworks which i swear are aimed at the crows gathered along the sidewalk. but what was really scary and kind of exciting were the other dancers alongside. these dances were more like drunk bar dances at irish pubs…except replace guinness pints with what looks like the skeleton of the umbrella with fireworks shooting out every which way like a sprinkler. loud cracking noises that went off every few minutes would make me jump, as these participants danced toward the crowd who would retreat away in a wave-like motion. although a lot of people were showering in it (99.9% of these people were wearing hoodies and scarves to cover their face) i was not prepared to do so. in fact, i was ready to have a heart attack every time one came by. thank god we were only there for a half hour or so!
the human towers in plaza de sant jaume were thrilling! some got as high as the surrounding buildings, as each level consisted of people standing on each others shoulders with their arms linked. drums start rolling as there is a time limit, and the pyramid is only complete when the last participant-a little child (probably about 3 years old) shimmies up one side and down the other. who the hell decides to let their kid participate? this definitely made me hold my breath! i only saw one pyramid crumble, and as the audience we could see it was going to happen. a guy in the middle of the tower was visibly shaking looking unbalanced, and sure enough, about ten seconds later the whole tower crumbled in slow motion. but atelast no one got hurt.
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